Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Labour spent half as much as National on last year's election campaign and was outspent by the Greens for the first time.

Parties' election advertising expenses were released yesterday and show Labour spent $1.27 million - slightly less than the Green Party on $1.29 million and half the National Party's $2.6 million.

Which means that the Greens had more money than Labour. And this isn't due to a massive increase in the Greens' fundraising (yes, they spent half a million more than they did last election, but still less than they did in 2008), but due to Labour's spending declining. Big donors have abandoned them because they're not in government and unable to deliver policy in return, while small donors have switched their support to the party which actually advocates for the left. Which is going to make them even more beholden to corporate money in the long term, and correspondingly less appealing to their traditional voters.